Sport is hard work and effort, but also fun. Arguably many people think sport must first and foremost be fun. It is interesting to think for a moment what those who have chosen to turn fun and play into more athletic pastimes or in into a real sport would think.
From street art to the circus, every day sport seems to widen its boundaries, becoming increasingly open and "welcoming" towards disciplines that until recently nobody would have associated with sports activities. Can juggling, for example, be a sport? There are those who have no doubt about this: their answer is certainly yes.

Jogging+Juggling=Joggling

Among the circus arts, juggling, or juggling with throws, is the most well-known and practiced. Seeing someone on the street who throws balls, circles or clubs is certainly not a rarity, despite the ability of those who know how to juggle with these instruments naturally never stops being astonishing. Whether it's in a park, at a traffic light or under the marquee of a circus, juggling invariably wins the attention of those who are watching, proving to be a spectacle as essential as it is surely fascinating.
But how much does all this have to do with sport? For Bill Giduz, the juggler who created joggling in 1975, a lot. As you can easily guess, Joggling consists of a combination of jogging and juggling. The basic idea is extraordinarily simple, as well as the origin of the discipline: the movement of a runner's arms, Bill Giduz noted, corresponds almost exactly to the one needed to throw three balls. So why not run and juggle at the same time? In 1980 the first official competition was held, and today the International Jugglers' Association organizes every year the World Joggling Championships, which see athletes compete in different competitions inspired by athletics: from 100 meters courses keeping in the air 3,5 or 7 objects to the relay in which to witness is a ball to pass on the fly.
According to those who have chosen to practice it, Joggling, besides being very funny, is a complete workout capable of keeping the mind active while keeping the whole body in shape.

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Combat Juggling: can juggling be competitive?

If running by throwing and grabbing balls and clubs looks like a child's idea, fighting juggling could change your mind about the relationship between juggling and sports. Integrating elements of competition, tactics and strategy, combat juggling has all the right cards to win over even the most skeptical of sports enthusiasts. Among the few who know what this is all about is unanimous opinion: at least from the point of view of entertainment, it is an exceptional sport.
First of all, the element that is not at all obvious for a discipline that originates in juggling, is that combat juggling is a team sport.
Two teams made up of five players compete to keep juggling clubs flying as long as possible. But it's not a simple endurance game: each player starts the challenge by playing with three objects, and his aim is to prevent them from falling to the ground by interfering with the opponent's exercise at the same time. If a player knocks down his clubs, he is eliminated, and the last player remaining in the game is declared the winner, together with his team. For this reason, it is not essential to be an expert juggler to become a good combat juggling player, more so that they are a highly strategic player whose main goal is the ability to find the best time to attack without being affected by backlash. If by chance someone still had doubts about juggling as a sport, let’s try to ask you a question: is it not the principle that most team sports have in common?

Between art and fitness, the Aerial Silk

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Increasingly widespread as an alternative form of training, that of aerial tissues is an acrobatic discipline that is clearly inspired by circus arts. Suspended at a height of between 4 and 10 metres, athletes perform even very complex movements to create spectacular figures. To allow all this are elastic fabric sheets that, hooked to a solid support, roll around the body, supporting it through knots in continuous transformation.
Beautiful to see and very challenging to perform, the performance of aerial fabrics are located halfway between art and fitness. Balance and fluidity in movements characterize the practice of this sport, which strongly stimulates the muscles of the legs and arms and abdominals.
It is not a discipline for everyone who, however, guarantees the physical and mental benefits of physical expression mediated only by the body.

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